Brethren, our commission is to make disciples just the same. Followers of Christ! It’s the same, and He said, “Lo, behold, I will be with you till the end of the age.” Brethren, this duty is for us. I stood there and I looked out over that city of Smyrna. Brethren I realized, faithful men, faithful women, walked these streets, they proclaimed the Gospel in a hostile world, but, Brethren, they’re gone. They were faithful. Christ commended them.
But they’re gone. This is our day. Brethren, we can’t live in the past. Those biographies out there on the table, they’re glorious, but we can’t live on that. Don’t you feel that? I have felt that.
In those early days, I was reading Dalamore’s book on Whitfield, and reading the book of Acts, and I was just crying out on the inside, Lord, where is that for today? I don’t just want to read about it, I want to live it. I want to see it. Brethren, we can’t live on the ashes in the dust. Those people there, they’re gone. There’s ash, there’s bone, there’s something, it’s buried there, but it’s done.
Our day is now! And our day is short. We’re not gonna be around long, and our task today, likewise, is to offer these up. Folks, I’d plead with you to pray. We can’t have this situation over in Turkey, where we at best have these half saved people, that when the crunch time comes they’ve fallen out of rank. We’ve got to have people that are saved, that when it comes to denying family, and loving Christ more than father, and mother, and brother, and sister, and husband and wife, it’s a reality. Where they’re willing to lay everything down and follow Christ at all cost. And that is a glorious, and an acceptable offering to God.
We can’t be content in our churches, to have these half-baked, half-saved people that come along and there’s no real commitment. But where we see it. Brethren, people’s hearts are being turned to Christ. We need to rejoice. Where you’ve got people who are dead in their sin, and you take the Gospel and you preach it to them, and then these people who used to be slaves of this sin are now brought to the place where they’re obedient from the heart, to this Word. And we can offer that up, and it’s for the glory of His name among all the nations.
Brethren, this is what we’ve got to be thinking. All the time, men are perishing, they’re perishing around us Brethren, and this is our day. The Spurgeons are gone, the Whitfields are gone, the Wesleys are gone, the Ravenhills are gone. Now is our day!
Who is going to evangelize the world? The newspapers aren’t doing it, the magazine’s don’t do it. It’s our day. Brethren, for the sake of His name among the nations. We need to seek to make an offering of obedient Gentiles, in the power of the Spirit. Yes, by word, yes, by deed, yes, by the powerful signs and wonders, let us pray like that Church of old.
How did they pray, brethren? God give us boldness to preach the Word, as You go forth working, in the mighty name of Christ doing signs and wonders. Let it be so. Brethren, last thing we need today is a powerless Church. It’s like Tozer said, when the Church is explained, when there’s no longer anything powerful, and mystical, and dangerous about the Church that’s when you know she.. Brethren, she’s circled the wagons. She’s just counting her victories, she’s circled in there, she’s now in safety mode. Brethren, let it not be. Our time is short. Our God is real. His word is true. And Christ is glorified.
Brethren, these young people being saved, we can take them. Isn’t it exciting? You see people, they’ve been in the church, our church isn’t all that old, but some families three, four, five, six years, individuals, and you see them, they’re just growing more and more committed. They’re growing in Christ. Brethren, we can offer that. And He is pleased. Brethren, let’s press on. Amen.
